Laos

I've fallen really far behind in this blogging - I was in Laos about four months ago now, which I still find hard to believe. I unfortunately don't have time right now to really write, so this post is going to mainly a photo dump. Not all of these photos are mine, but I can't always remember whose they are. I credited them where I could.

Laos marked the middle of my Chinese New Year trip. It was also the largest crowd of the trip, as there were a total of seven us traveling together. I was joined by Sam and Matt, the scholars from Taiwan, Claire, one of the Cambodia scholars, Eryn, the Laos scholar, Gene, the Korea scholar, and Joe, one of Gene's labmates. So we had quite a sizable group.

All of us together. Photo credit to Joe Kim.

We started out in Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Eryn works in Vientiane and the rest of us straggled in over two days. The most important parts of life in Laos, as Eryn told us, are eating and drinking, so Matt, Sam, and I (who all came in on the same flight) took a taxi directly from the airport to the restaurant for dinner, where we met Claire and Eryn. I've never seen an airport so close to a major city (no more than half an hour).

We actually spent the first night boiling our clothes. Or at least, Matt and I did, because we suspected we may have scabies, a fun infectious skin disease that we may have picked up from our earlier travels in Vietnam. Turns out, we didn't. Or if we did, the five hours we spent boiling all of our clothes and applying anti-scabies cream killed them. We warned Eryn that we would need to boil a large amount of water, without telling her why, so she asked everyone she knew for a rice machine, kettle, or hot water machine. It worked out well in the end, but it was a silly night.

 Chinese temple in Vientiane! It was crowded because it was Chinese New Year. 

 A Lao Temple

 The above photo was from the top of the Patuxai, or Victory Gate, a monument that looks an awful lot like the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Vientiane. It's dedicated to those who died in the struggle for independence against France and was built with American funds and cement meant to go towards the construction of a new airport.

 

We spent a day in Vientiane, exploring the sites and eating the food, before heading out to Vang Vieng, a backpacker destination a couple of hours from Vientiane by bus. Absolutely beautiful scenery. We did a lot of motorbiking around and enjoying the giant karst mountains.

 Vang Vieng is popular with European tourists who, shall we say, have different hobbies than the Lao people who live in the area.

 Lao is a Communist one-party state, though it's government is not quite as effective as China's.

 Lao Whiskey! Everyone's favorite drink.

 It is unclear what animals were in those cages, but the owners did not like us taking pictures of them...

After breakfast, there's no better way to start the stay than getting that perfect photo.

We then returned to Vientiane and had some more fun exploring the city and eating. However, it should be noted that Laos has a curfew. It varies across the country (Vientiane's is 11:30pm) and is sporadically enforced, especially for foreigners, but occasionally...you will get noticed. So it was for us, leaving the beach at about 15 minutes before midnight on a Saturday night. We were accosted by a group of Lao police, almost all of them wearing camo and holding rifles, who believed we had swum over the river for Thailand, despite the fact that all of us were completely dry and, really, it's not like Laos is that hard to enter legally. Eryn spent a lot of time talking to them and explaining our situation, all in Lao, while the rest of us just stood around and tried to look non-threatening. It wasn't entirely successful, as the police forced Gene to unpack his camera bag and show the police all of the contents. The police wanted us to journey down to the station and get out our passports and all sorts of complicated stuff. They also threatened to call our ambassador (not sure how that would've worked out - I'm pretty certain they would've supported us). Eventually they settled on a "fine" of about $50 each. We did not have nearly that much cash on us, so we offered them everything we had in our pockets, about $8 each, and they decided to call it even, wandering away and leaving us alone. We then proceeded to book it back to Eryn's apartment, as we were more than a little high on adrenaline after what just happened. So, that was an interesting experience.

Motorbikes, Southeast Asia-style. Photo credit to Gene Mereweather.

Lao whiskey. It's a bunch of alcohol that has had spices soaking it for a while. Delicious.

 Nachos. Because everyone misses nachos. Don't know why they're so hard to find in China...

 The banks of the river Mekong at night.

 Eryn explaining she doesn't actually know what is in the sauce we're about to eat. But it's delicious anyway, so we forgave her.

 Serious time: one of the biggest issues in Laos right now are UXOs - unexploded ordinances. Basically, during the Vietnam War, Laos was also in the midst of a Communist revolution. The US wasn't too happy about this, but we weren't technically at war with Laos. However, American bombers would often flow over the country during bombing runs, as it lay directly between the air bases in Thailand and their targets in Northern Vietnam. It's apparently dangerous to land a plane with unexploded bombs still onboard, so when the bombers had left over bombs, they would often just drop them on Laos on the way back to base. But not all of them exploded on impact, so there are currently thousands of bombs still lying around the country. For the most part, they lie there, until someone: moves them, lights a fire nearby or above them, strikes them accidentally, or tries to sell parts of them as scrap metal. Laos is the most bombed country in the world per capita and the effects are still being felt. It's not a happy museum to visit, the COPE center, but it's worth seeing.

For some reason, there were a heck of a lot of monks riding around in buses while we in Vientiane the second time. Dunno why. But we found it amusing.

I should also note that Lao food is absolutely delicious. It's more similar to Thai than anything else, with a combination of spicy and citrusy sour that's just wonderful. And it's real spicy. Hottest food I've ever eaten was in Lao, an encounter with papaya salad which Sam kindly recorded for posterity. Seriously though, Lao food is fantastic. Laab. Laaaaaab. It's ground or diced meat or fish mixed with spices and delicious.

And that's Laos. An awesome, beautiful, and delicious country.

Mộc Châu

Note: the formatting on this post is kind of messed up and I can't figure out why. I keep changing it back to the way I want it to look and then it doesn't stick and reverts to weird spacing and the like. So I apologize for that.

From Hanoi, I traveled with Matt and Tarlie outside of the city to a town by the name of Mộc Châu, in the countryside of Northern Vietnam. We traveled there with Tarlie and Meg’s Vietnamese teacher, Trà (pronounced similar to “cha”). Trà was returning home for the holidays and invited us along to spend a couple days with her family and see another part of Vietnam. Eager to explore as much of the country as we could in our short visit, Matt and I decided we would like to tail along. And so, we found ourselves spending Sunday night in the far back of a bus, lying five across on beds that were just too short for me.

 

In addition to Trà, Matt, Tarlie, and I, we were also traveling with Nam Jang Yeop, a Korean soldier and another of Trà’s students who was similarly invited along (while Nam is his family name, that’s how he was introduced to us and what we called him during the trip, so I will refer the Nam as Nam for this blog post). The bus was actually fairly comfortable and I slept through most of the six hour trip from Hanoi to Mộc Châu. Because of the timing of the trip, we arrived in town around 3 or 4am and, despite our completely nonsensical and confused state, were effectively herded off the bus by Trà, who knew exactly what she was doing. We then walked inside Trà’s family’s house and promptly passed out. I was too tired to pay attention at the time, but the house was of a style that appeared to be pretty typical in Vietnam, tall and narrow with the family store on the first floor and the family room, kitchen, and bedrooms on the floors above.

The following day we started off with a late breakfast/early lunch consisting of yogurt, as the surrounding area is famous for its dairies, and headed off into the countryside. Trà was going to help her family cook throughout the day, so she couldn’t join us, but the four of us hopped onto two motorbikes and followed Trà’s directions through some tea fields and to an interesting village nearby. We did not manage to follow her directions super closely, but we did see lots and lots of beautiful scenery.

Matt and I also got our first try at driving the motorbikes, instead of just being passengers. It was mildly terrifying, especially for someone as motor-vehicularly-challenged as myself, but by the end of this trip, Matt and I were old hands.

We eventually found what we thought was the correct route to the village, a small little path leading over the mountains, and so we parked our bikes and got ready to hike. However, a random man was walking up the path at the same time and so, just to double check, we decided to ask him if this way the way to the villages we wanted. By we, I of course mean Tarlie and Nam, the two Vietnamese speakers in the group. And it was a good thing we asked, because this was not at all the place we wanted.

After getting directions to the actual village, we hopped back on the bikes, headed back the way we came and, after overcoming a mild crash due to a slope, slippery gravel, and a little more weight on the bike than Tarlie was used to, we managed to arrive at the absurdly steep hill that led to the village in question.

This doesn’t quite show how steep the hill was, but it was quite steep. I promise.

We decided to play it safe and ventured up the path on foot. This took longer, but allowed us to enjoy the scenery. We were passed on the way by two young boys on a motorbike who were much more skilled than I can ever hope to be and several water buffalo.

We eventually came to the village, which was home to some members of the Hmong minority, or Miao as they’re called in Chinese. The Hmong live in the area straddling the Lao, Vietnamese, and Chinese borders and were an ally of the United States during the Vietnamese War, fighting against the Northern Vietnamese Communists as well as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. After the withdrawal of US troops from the region, the victorious Vietnamese and Lao Communist forces targeted the Hmong in retaliation and it was around this time that a mysterious object known as “yellow rain” first came to the attention of the United States. It was believed the yellow rain was a chemical weapon, developed by the Soviet Union, and dropped by the Communists on the Hmong as part of their retaliation efforts. This caused quite a stir in the United States, since if the Soviet Union was developing chemical weapons in secret this would lead to a significant change in the situation of the Cold War. However, following the identification of yellow rain as a possible chemical weapon, some other scientists tested it and came to the conclusion that it was nothing other than bee poop. This was vehemently contested by, among others, Hmong refugees in the US, who reported seeing their friends and family actively injured by yellow rain. It’s still unclear what exactly yellow rain was and, if you’re interested, there’s a very interesting RadioLab episode on the matter. I highly recommend it, as well as reading both of these responses, though it’s all a little difficult to listen to. Thanks to Tarlie for recommending all of these to me in the first place.

Anyways, we eventually found the village, but quickly realized that this really was a village. Not a small town or a tourist site, but a small place that people lived in. As no one was really out and about, we were uncomfortable wandering around for too long, so after a little bit, we continued on. We passed an old man hacking down branches nearby and Tarlie chatted with him for a little bit, talking about who we were and why we were in the area. He laughingly told us to keep hiking, enjoy the scenery, and “go play,” a phrase that is apparently fairly common in Vietnamese. This is similar to Mandarin, where it’s my understanding that 跟朋友玩/play with friends, is the closest phrase to “hang out with friends.”

We passed a cultural center near the village, but it didn’t seem to be open and there was no one nearby, so we kept walking.

This goose was actually fairly scary, walking around like this and making strange wheezing noises. I know little about geese other than they can be vicious, so I was more than happy to keep my distance. This kid was far braver than I.

We wandered around for a little more, saw plenty of beautiful scenery that my camera really couldn’t capture appropriately and then turned around so that we could make it home in time for dinner.

These pictures don't capture how pretty it was, but it was really quite beautiful.

Pretty sure these are tea fields

That night, we had dinner with the whole family, sitting on the floor around a delicious meal of boiled duck (a duck we had seen the day before, hanging out and breathing menacingly in the kitchen), smoked meats, and veggies. After dinner, we wandered around, enjoying the nice night, but headed in early as the town pretty much shut down.

The next day was similar, though Nam left to go take care of some paper work in Hanoi, so it was just Tarlie, Matt, and I traveling around. We did more motorbiking and saw more beautiful sights.

I don't know why, but I really like this picture

We spent a good chunk of the afternoon searching for some strawberry fields Trà had told us about. This involved biking up an extremely rocky and uneven road until we gave up and parked our bikes and then wandered on foot. As we walked, we were passed by many many motorbikes, most carrying at least three people and all far more skilled than us.

After walking for a while, we decided that this was probably not the right road and so turned around. On the way back, we passed a woman who told us that if we had continued walking just a little bit farther, we would have come to some strawberry fields. Ah well. She also commented, “Oh, so those bikes back there are your bikes,” as apparently several people had taken note of them.

That night, we had dinner with Trà and her family again, this time in her grandmother’s house, where several members of the family were busy making bánh chưng, a type of rice cake wrapped in a special type of leaf and consisting of glutinous rice mixed with mung beans wrapped around pork that is traditionally eaten around Tet. They had a whole assembly line going, with several members of the family all working together to create an impressive number of the cakes.

We watched for a while, offered to help and were told there was nothing we could do. So Matt and I entertained the several little boys of the family while we waited for dinner.

They had way too much energy.

This may be one of my favorite pictures of the trip.

After dinner, we offered to clean and started to help, but Matt and I were kicked out of the kitchen in pretty short order and told to wait in the living room. Tarlie was allowed to remain and help, because cleaning is women’s work. According to Tarlie, in Vietnam, the women will typically come over before a dinner to help clean and prepare and stay afterwards to help clean, while the men will hang out and drink tea or alcohol. Ah, traditional gender roles. I think they would've let us stay and help, but then they didn't have enough slippers for us and offered Matt and I some very obviously women's shoes. And it was at that moment that the uncle in the family spoke up and said, no no no, no cleaning for you. So putting on women's shows may have been the line that we could not cross.

We then piled ourselves onto another bus to return to Hanoi. This bus was a little less comfortable. The reservations had been made just that afternoon, as we were unsure of when we wanted to return to the city. The bus we got was originally not even supposed to stop in Hanoi, just go through, but Trà knew the driver, so she was able to get us seats on the bus and convince the driver to let us off downtown. When we got on the bus, however, there were no beds available and basically no room. We sat on the floor at the front of the bus, right next to the driver, who assured us that there would be beds for us once we came to the first stop.

People on the bus. Not the best quality, because it was dark and this was on my phone.

Sitting across the floor of the bus was not the most comfortable position, but we were there for only half an hour or so before pulling into the first rest stop, where people filed off the bus to stretch their legs and get something to eat. Unsure as to what was really happening, we hung out right next to the bus and, after the stream of people had stopped, got back on and asked the conductor-type person, where we would be able to lie down. He motioned to two beds that had been recently vacated and then reached over to a third and tugged the blanket of the man lying there. He talked with him for a while, then the man, who had been sleeping, got up and exited the bus, leaving the bed free for us. It remains unclear as to whether this was always the plan or if we were getting special treatment, either because we were foreigners or because Trà knew the driver. Regardless, we got ourselves some beds.

Because Matt and I had the top bunks, we slept pretty well most of the way back, but Tarlie was constantly jockeying with people for position and ended up sharing her bed with pregnant woman who was sitting on the floor.

We arrived in Hanoi at around 3am and exited the bus to find ourselves on the side of a major street with one taxi driver nearby. After giving us one price for the ride to the hotel we were staying in, he realized that he could charge us pretty much anything he wanted, as it was the middle of the night and we had no other options, so he decided to raise it. After negotiating for a while, we got a price we were content with, made our way to the hotel and promptly fell asleep.

We were in Hanoi for about another two days before Matt and I headed onto Vientiane, Laos, meeting up with more Luce Scholars there. I’ll talk about Laos in my next post.

It was definitely worth visiting Mộc Châu. It was a completely different feeling than Hanoi and, though it was definitely not a tourist spot, it was filled with beautiful scenery. In a slightly tangential way, it reminds me of something Gangyi, one of my friends in Guangzhou, said to me. We were discussing how people in China don’t go to bars the way Westerners do and I said, “That’s not quite true – I went to bars with Chinese friends in Beijing and saw plenty of Chinese people there.” Gangyi replied with, “Oh, well Beijing doesn’t really count as China.” While this is obviously exaggerated, there’s a grain of truth to it. The large, bustling cities in most countries often don’t have the same culture or feel as the more traditional places you find out in the countryside: internationalization and urbanization lead to a similarity between large cities, regardless of where in the world you may find yourself. I myself often appreciate this – I love that I can find interesting Western bars and cafes in big Chinese cities, just the way that I love I can find good Chinese food in big Western cities. But it’s definitely worth getting away from the big cities to see how the countryside differs. They’re often harder trips to make though, made much easier if you know someone who lives there or someone who speaks the language. So I feel pretty darn fortunate that I had the opportunity to visit Mộc Châu and see what it's like.

And a final thought: the roads in Mộc Châu, with the exception of some smaller, more remote roads, were quite good. Especially compared with the roads I had seen in the countryside near Harbin, in Northeast China and that I was about to see in Cambodia and Laos, they were really impressive for rural roads.

That’s all for now.